


A Brother's Lament: In Three Movements

by Torytigress92



Series: In A Parallel and/or Alternate Universe Far, Far Away... [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Can't cope with emotions, Character Death, Gen, I personally think that Mummy and Daddy Holmes are major characters, Mourning, Our Holmes kids are screwed up, Post-His Last Vow, Post-The Final Problem, Pre-Series, Series 3, Series 4, Somewhat pretentious titling and metaphor usage, music as mourning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-03
Updated: 2017-02-03
Packaged: 2018-09-21 20:21:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9564818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torytigress92/pseuds/Torytigress92
Summary: Many made the mistake of thinking Sherlock to be the only artistic one of the family. Those assumptions, suppositions of the ignorant and unobservant, were incorrect. Three moments in time, before, during and after TFP, where Mycroft expressed his emotions in the only way the Ice Man could. No pairings, Holmes siblings BrOtp.





	

_**A Brother** _ _ **'** _ _**s Lament in Three Movements** _

* * *

_Many made the mistake of thinking Sherlock to be the only artistic one of the family. Eurus_ _'_ _s absence notwithstanding, it was simply assumed that the cold, dour elder Holmes child possessed nothing of the artist_ _'_ _s eye or ear, despite his slender fingers and hands, perfect for composing or painting, just like their father_ _'_ _s. It was only logical that the coolly logical, methodical brother did not waste his time on such a trivial pursuit as the creation of art._

_Those assumptions, suppositions of the ignorant and unobservant, were incorrect._

_None saw the calluses on his fingers that spoke of long hours spent practicing, nor the slight stoop to his left shoulder from the weight of a heavy instrument. After a time, they faded as his own secret waned, into the fog of the past until even his own parents forgot it, let alone his repressive younger brother. Not even Eurus remembered, or she no longer cared. She didn_ _'_ _t want her eldest brother, only the younger, to join her in play._

_And it was true, as he grew and trained and worked, he no longer had time for the composition of art. His mind grew cold and sterile, science replacing artistry, fact replacing any capacity for fantasy. Nevertheless, an ember would always remain, buried in the depths of his mind palace, just waiting for the right stimulus to flare again…_

* * *

_**First Movement -** _

Mycroft was thirteen when his little sister burned down Musgrave House. In the days after the Redbeard debacle, he had watched his little brother and sister closely, never letting Sherlock stay alone in a room with Eurus willingly.

He watched as Sherlock screamed and cried, helpless to do anything to comfort him. He watched as the tears dried, and the screams quietened. He watched as Sherlock turned in on himself, the happy pirate-child gone forever, growing as cold and distant as Mycroft himself. No one could reach him, not their parents, nor the numerous therapists engaged to help Sherlock. He rebuffed them all.

In turn, he watched Eurus as she slipped deeper into her psychosis. He watched as the desperate hope and yearning in her eyes turned to black hatred and despair. He watched as she simply smiled and sang that song, whenever anyone questioned her as to Redbeard's whereabouts. That melody still haunted his dreams; it was why he had trained himself to require as little sleep as possible.

And then the fire came. It was the ashes he remembered most, the grey and black flakes of his home fluttering down around him as he stood watching the blaze, not seeing the crews of firemen desperately trying to save the house, nor the ambulance crew checking his family for smoke inhalation and minor burns.

He saw only Eurus, and the dead spark of her eyes.

They took her away the next week, after long discussion with his Uncle Rudy. He would never forget watching her being led away in handcuffs, as Mummy sobbed in Father's arms, Uncle Rudy's hand like another chain on the little girl's shoulder.

It had been harsh but necessary. Eurus was too dangerous to be treated as a child now. They couldn't dupe her into leaving with Uncle Rudy safely. It had to be this way. She was too dangerous.

Thirteen-year old Mycroft imprinted that maxim on his heart as he watched the black Mercedes follow the ambulance up the drive and away from their temporary home. He then locked that heart away in a cast-iron box in his mind palace for good measure.

There hadn't been much to salvage, once the fire burnt out. Mycroft's bedroom had been furthest from the source of the blaze, so perhaps that, and the fact that it lived in a sturdy metal lined case, accounted for its survival.

As the cavalcade of vehicles spirited his sister away forever, Mycroft turned from the window of his temporary bedroom and went to his bed. Underneath, soot-stained and dented by fallen beams, lay a cello case.

He dragged it out, before making sure his door was locked. No need for risking interruptions, even if it was unlikely. His brother was deeply asleep on the other side of the house and his parents were too lost in their grief to care much about what he was going to do.

Opening the case to reveal the velvet-lined interior, Mycroft lovingly caressed the varnished wooden instrument inside, untouched by the flames. He briefly rosined the bow, before taking a seat on the edge of his bed and hefting the heavy instrument against his body with practised ease.

He took a few moments to tune the instrument, plucking the strings and adjusting the pegs, until satisfied with the sound. Placing the fingers on the fingerboard, he closed his eyes and thought what to play.

He began with Bach's Suite No 2 in D Minor, the mellifluous tones of the prelude rising around him, blocking everything out as the bow rose and fell gracefully. Bach had always been Eurus and Sherlock's favourite to play on their violins.

He drifted through the prelude and allemande, experimenting with tempo and vibrato freely, rather than doggedly sticking to the received technique. The music rose and fell at his command, as it slowly began to morph into a new melody, slipping from the velveteen darkness of Bach's composition to a new counterpoint to the beating of Mycroft's heart.

As he drifted from Bach, he began to remember Sherlock. He remembered the piratical boy with wild curls and bloodied knees, racing around with his wooden cutlass raised high. He remembered the splash of icy river water as they all played and he watched from a distance, dashing stones across the rippling surface.

He remembered laughter and cries of triumph as imaginary foes were slaughtered and defeated; he remembered the shadow of another always following his brother's every footstep, as loyal as any dog.

He remembered, he played and he mourned. His music swelled and then trembled with a final note, drawn out with an aching vibrato, as Mycroft watched the change from exuberant child to haunted ghost in his brother.

And then came the chaos and the darkness to act once more as counterpoint, as he laid his bow once more to string and drew it across. As he played, he thought of shining brown hair in pigtails, he thought of a pilfered, over-large cardigan, sleeves rolled up many times to let tiny, child hands through. He remembered the blue sheen of a plastic toy aeroplane. He remembered a child's voice, high and feminine, calling for her brothers to come play.

He remembered the song. _"I that am lost, oh who will find me? Deep down below the old beech tree. Oh, succour me now the East Winds blow, sixteen by six brother, and under we go…"_

He remembered flashing fear and sinking realisation, tinged with black horror. The notes rose and raced in response, his body at one with the instrument in his arms, his mind absorbed in the melodies he constructed as he drifted through his mind palace.

Had anyone heard him, they would have been astounded by the music that poured from his hands, graceful and sure on the bow as he conducted the lonely recital, his song a funereal dirge of grief, fear, loss and anguish for the days lost and words unsaid that would never now be lived, and never now be said. He played for his lost sister, for his bereaved parents, and for the child who lay asleep on the other side of the house.

This would be the last time he could play. He would take no risks that his playing would trigger Sherlock's memories, that he would recall the impromptu recitals the three Holmes children would perform, both for their parents and for their own pleasure, and the chaotic, fruitless attempts to teach his brother and sister the cello, and the corresponding failure to succeed. Mycroft was tall, for his age, and bulky and so the large instrument suited him perfectly, sonorous and burdensome as it was. Sherlock's slender arms were made for the violin, Eurus's delicate fingers for it too.

But now that music would be silenced. He could take no risks, since Sherlock had obviously sought to repress his memories of Redbeard and soon, his sister too.

And so he played. And so he mourned.

He played, one last time, for the little brother who lay in his bed across the house, unhearing and uncaring of his brother's lament for the boy he had been. Deaf to all melodies but those of his own restless dreams, while Mycroft could not escape his own melody until the sun rose.

With a sigh, Mycroft ended the piece on a final trembling note, uncaring of the burst blisters on his fingers from playing for so long, and the blood that tarnished the strings of the cello.

The silence was deafening. It threatened to consume Mycroft, but he had to do it for Sherlock's sake. He would surrender his music if it meant Sherlock could survive free of its taint.

The time for playing was over, the mourning finished. But his watch had only just begun.

* * *

_**Second Movement -** _

The silence was deafening.

Mycroft had always thought that phrase to be rather inane and frightfully inaccurate. Silence had always been, since early adolescence, a retreat for Mycroft from the vagaries and stupidities of his goldfish world. But now he considered its benefits anew, after the hellish day that was only now drawing to a close.

Sherlock always had loved being dramatic. His latest foray into melodrama had truly capped them all.

He'd warned him. He'd told him to stay away from that parasite Magnussen but as usual, baby brother had refused to listen. Just as he always had since their childhood. Since the days of Eurus.

Mycroft placed his weekend bag and briefcase down with a heavy sigh, the heavy _thump_ of the luggage only just softened to his weary senses by the hallway runner. He slid his umbrella back into its stand and hung his heavy winter overcoat on the rack.

He needed a drink.

It was a common feeling after dealing with Sherlock's dramatics, the need for alcoholic relief to his over-stimulated and thoroughly irritated brain, but this was easily the worst instance. All the other times, Sherlock, and occasionally John, had only irritated and discomfited him, nothing more. But this time…. this time, Sherlock had crossed the metaphorical path of no return. He had left his all but omnipotent brother's hands tied irretrievably.

There was nothing he could do. He had failed to keep Magnussen and Sherlock apart, and thus he had failed to stop Sherlock from doing the one thing he feared most. Sacrificing all to protect the people he loved.

As they had grown Mycroft had often pondered the extent of his brother's emotional repression. After Redbeard, there had been no more attachments, no more forays into the chaos of emotion. Mycroft had often wondered if the drugs had answered some lack, some emptiness in his brother where his heart had once existed. Eventually the work had overtaken that, and then John Watson had come along. Mycroft hadn't known if it was a good or a bad thing that the ex-army doctor had awakened Sherlock's wasted, atrophic heart. On the one hand, it had made Sherlock the happiest he had ever seen him since childhood. On the other, it had left him vulnerable.

Mycroft pulled himself away from the meandering reveries of his mind on Sherlock and John, as he closed the door of his private study. He shrugged out of his tweed blazer, flinging it with unusual nonchalance over the weathered brown leather sofa near the fireplace. His housekeeper had left a good blaze going for him, but it did little to ward away the chill that hadn't left Mycroft since he'd awoken from his narcotic-induced stupor to find his laptop missing and John and Sherlock gone from his parents' house. It hadn't taken the brain of a genius to deduce where they'd absconded to.

Magnussen.

The name was a snarl in his head, overlaid by tones of contempt and grudging fear. Mycroft had long associated the man with disgust and revulsion, and he had held himself free of the man's machinations as long as he could. But eventually, inevitably, Magnussen had found his one pressure point and exploited it, and so Mycroft had forced himself to emote apathy towards the man, if only to protect one of the few people he still cared for.

He'd always maintained that caring was not an advantage. Charles Augustus Magnussen was the prime reason why.

With a sigh, Mycroft pushed the thought of him from his mind. The man was dead, there was no point dwelling on him now. He poured himself a measure of scotch from the crystal decanter that awaited him, taking a deep sip. It burned his throat as he swallowed, the glass clinking against the gold ring on his right hand.

Contemplatively, Mycroft turned to stare into the flames as his mind turned to the conundrum that now awaited him. Sherlock had murdered Magnussen, in cold blood, in front of a dozen witnesses. He had no doubt that he had done so to protect John, and through him Mary Watson, and thus everyone else who had ever been held hostage by the threat of Appledore's Vaults. But in doing so, he had left Mycroft with an invidious task ahead.

Deciding how to punish the only thing he loved more than his work or his country. He had to decide how to punish his baby brother for his crime, though only the cold, impersonal hand of the law could write it as such. The truth of Charles Magnussen and the Appledore Vaults could not save him, and few juries would buy that defence.

And only the deepest echelons of government and those Magnussen had blackmailed knew the truth of the man. The general public were ignorant, and no one would step forward to vouch for the truth of Sherlock's actions. They would let him hang and the public would see only that a former celebrity had turned against a newspaper magnate, a celebrity who had been accused of instability and fraudulent actions before. It would not take long for the press to turn against Sherlock again.

Mycroft would gouge his own eyes out rather than see that happen again.

So that meant no public trial. Charles Magnussen's death must be spun as a tragic suicide to the general public and the press. Easy enough. Sherlock had provided a handy alibi in shooting him in the head, and since it was well-known that Magnussen was ambidextrous, it would not be a stretch for the newspapers to accept that he had shot himself in the left-hand side of his head.

Mycroft's superiors and colleagues could not be so easily duped. Which meant summary punishment without _habeas corpus_ or any other legal right.

They could not imprison Sherlock. Any normal institution would be laughably insecure, and although he had no doubt that Sherlock would not attempt escape if only for fear of reprisal against John, Mycroft could not countenance it. He briefly toyed with the possibility of sending Sherlock to Sherrinford, but he quickly discounted it.

He could not risk Sherlock ever encountering Eurus, or vice versa. For his brother's sake, he would not risk breaking the repression Sherlock had inflicted on his own memories. It was clear Sherlock still recalled nothing of the truth of those events, and Mycroft would not invite trouble for all of them by prodding too far. He had looked after him, but no further would he bait that particular beast.

That left one alternative: the mission in Eastern Europe for MI6.

Mycroft closed his eyes, sentiment rising up from the depths of his own withered heart to claw at his throat, making the alcohol threaten to return to pay him a visit. He placed the crystal tumbler down, distantly annoyed that his hand was shaking at the thought of sending Sherlock back into Serbia, but he could see no other alternative.

He could not let Sherlock waste to nothing in a jail cell. Prison would kill him, and he would kill every other inmate and prison officer in the process. He would not inflict that upon him.

At least the mission in Serbia would give Sherlock a chance. With Sherlock's intellect, and Mycroft far away in Britain, he could plausibly escape at the right moment. It would be a life forever on the run for him, but at least he would be alive…

But no. Sherlock wouldn't do it. He knew doing so would put John, Mary and their child at risk. Others far higher than Mycroft in the government hierarchy would think nothing of using the Watsons as bait to trap his little brother. And he would be powerless to intervene, without losing his position and all he had worked for. He was of no use to anyone stuck on the run with Sherlock forever. And he had other pressure points, such as his parents, for others to utilise in order to draw him into a trap. Jim Moriarty may have dubbed him 'the Ice Man' but as Magnussen had discovered, even Mycroft Holmes had his pressure points. And even Sherlock would never think to put his brother in such an invidious position. Now, even there Sherlock's nascent sentiment would prompt him to play the sacrificial lamb.

As Mycroft opened his eyes, his gaze fell on the walnut wooden chest that sat, unnoticed and forgettable, against the far wall. Without conscious thought, he drifted across the room and knelt to open the antique chest. Nestled inside, wrapped in dust covers, was his cello case.

He hadn't played in years. He hadn't dared to while he still lived with Sherlock, and then as he had grown, other concerns had taken precedence. He was a far cry from the sentimental child he had been.

But now he was once again the mourning brother, and he had no other outlet for his grief. He could feel it again, rising to choke him.

He hesitated for a moment, before reaching in decisively and hefting the heavy case out of the chest. The dust covers fell away, revealing the scorched case.

Mycroft stared at it as he placed it on the floor. He shouldn't open it, it was ridiculously sentimental, as unforgivably so as when he had first brought it along with him when he went to University. The strings would probably have perished by now, or so he tried to deceive himself.

Funny how the mind could try to trick oneself when fighting to avoid sinking into a bathos of sentiment. He'd forgotten he had replaced the strings and rosined the bow devotedly for many years, even though he never plucked a single note from the cello's strings in the interim.

With an irritated sigh, Mycroft carefully undid the cufflinks at his sleeves and rolled them up, so his forearms were exposed and free. He opened the case, flicking the latches undone, and stared down at the shining wood and immaculate strings that appeared to his view as he opened the case. With just a moment's more hesitation, Mycroft reached in and lifted the heavy instrument into his arms. He took the bow in his free hand and went to sit down on his favourite armchair beside the fire.

He sank into its cushioning depths gladly, before positioning the cello correctly against his body. This time, he did not ponder what to play first as he had done so many years ago, when he was just a green boy mourning his brother and sister's fall. He was no longer a boy, but that grief still lived inside him, buried under the armoured layers of the Ice Man.

No, instead Mycroft Holmes just set the bow to string and played. The notes fell effortlessly into his mind, his former skill called up from the depths of his mind palace so the uncertain fumblings of his fingers only lasted momentarily before his fingers grew sure and strong.

The music rippled out, sure and strong, as Mycroft allowed his mind to wander without direction. It went immediately to his recalcitrant baby brother, and the tears on his cheek as red sniper's dots had danced over his razor-edged cheekbones.

Mycroft's bow became the wind that rippled Sherlock's wild curls, the strings of his cello the bowing of his brother's proud form as he surrendered to arrest and punishment. The weight of the cello against his chest and shoulder became the weight of his grief and anguish as he'd looked down on his brother from the helicopter in despair. _"Oh Sherlock, what have you done...?"_

At that moment, the man was gone and the boy returned, staring down at his baby brother who was drowning in his own heart. And just as before, the music swelled and echoed out into the stillness of the night, without an audience to marvel at its pain and sorrow.

He preferred it that way. He preferred the shadows to the light.

For that one night, Mycroft allowed himself the pain of sentiment as he played, as he mourned and then tomorrow…he would do what he must. But until the sun rose…

Mycroft played. And he mourned.

* * *

_**Third Movement** _ _**–** _

It was midnight when he got the call.

He'd once declared, with a fair amount of contempt for the idiots who thought otherwise, that dying was the one thing humans could be relied upon to do. He'd never calculated his own response to such an event, if only because he fell into that same human fallacy that afflicted the goldfish around him. He never considered it because he never expected it. Like a child, he clung to the subconscious need to view his parents as invincible.

But they weren't. His indefatigable Mummy and Father were gone.

And Mycroft didn't know what to do.

Exactly eighteen minutes and nine point five seconds later, Sherlock walked through the door of his study. He stopped, arrested at the sight of his brother sat beside the fire, lovingly rosining a bow while a cello case lay open at his feet.

"I didn't know you played," he breathed haltingly. Mycroft could easily imagine his pouting moue of a mouth, brow dramatically furrowed in confusion and frustration. A part of him had wondered if Sherlock would recall their childhood recitals before Eurus's departure, but he had not. Mycroft wouldn't have been surprised if he had simply deleted the knowledge altogether.

"Not often," Mycroft replied, a gruffness in his voice to match the vulnerability in his brother's. "And not recently. Not since Eurus was taken away…"

"Why?" his brother's voice asked as footsteps came hesitantly closer.

"We used to play together, all three of us," Mycroft smiled to himself, staring deep into the flames as fingers danced over the strings with practiced ease that couldn't be faked. "Before the Redbeard incident. After she was taken, I didn't want to risk anything that might trigger your memories and pain you further so I stopped."

He heard and felt his brother kneel beside him, and yet he had never felt further away. The silent knowledge of they had just learned hovered between them like a spectre.

"I was so far removed from you two in age," he continued, a note of yearning slipping into his husky tones. Usually he would have cursed the slip in his emotional control, but not tonight. "And we used to fight even then. It was one of the few moments when the three of us could be in harmony."

"Eurus never mentioned it," Sherlock replied defensively, as if thinking that Mycroft was finding fault in his still fragmented memories.

"No, I'm not surprised she didn't," Mycroft's smile became tinged with sadness. "It wasn't me she wanted. She wanted you."

But it was more than that. If she had asked Mycroft to play with her, after he'd given her the violin as a Christmas gift, he would have refused. To do so would have permitted an intimacy and a weakening of his defences that he would not countenance. The brother of Eurus and Sherlock Holmes played duets with his siblings. The British government did not play with prisoners of the State.

Maybe Eurus had sensed that. Maybe that was why she never asked.

Maybe she had simply disavowed her eldest brother long ago, when he had transferred her to Sherrinford after Uncle Rudy passed away.

Mycroft was drawn from his reverie by a hand on his shoulder. He stared at it, slender, pale and graceful; and then looked up at his brother in confusion. That act of awkward gentleness, whispering of lack of practice and equal unease, pulled him up short.

But Sherlock's smile, impish and mischievous, masking the pain in his eyes, warmed Mycroft's heart. It was the smile he remembered from their childhood, when Sherlock was still loving and carefree, and he played pirates among the funny gravestones with Victor.

"I think it's time for a proper family reunion then, brother mine."

It took no small attempt at persuasion to get Mycroft and his cello aboard the helicopter. Sherlock had been certain many times that Mycroft would not simply bolt when he stopped at 221B for his own violin, leaving a note for John and Mrs Hudson to let them know where he had gone. Or when they arrived at the airstrip. Or even when they started the long walk down to the secure unit where their sister dwelled.

Sherlock wondered what he feared most: their sister's rejection or the hidden meaning behind the impromptu visit.

The new governor had been most surprised by their visit and ogled the bags carried by both men. Sherlock's visits to play duet with his sister were well-known and accepted. He had been visiting for over a year. No one could understand why the elder Holmes had come with a bag of his own too.

In the end, the man was clever enough not to ask questions and simply led them down the secure unit. At Mycroft's behest, a stool was brought too.

Sherlock could feel his brother's disquietude, his hands clenching and unclenching on the strap of the bag that carried his cello case, the closest his oh-so-controlled brother would get to fidgeting nervously.

Outside it was dawn, but within the secure unit, it might as well have been the middle of the day. The crystalline blue tinge of the cell's lights turned to brightest white as they stepped from the revolving door, and the governor left them alone.

Eurus Holmes stood there in the centre of the cell, as if at some parody of a parade rest, eyes staring into nothing. She looked up at the lights flicked on, eyes immediately flying to Sherlock. A small smile dawned when she saw the familiar carryall, but faded when she noticed Mycroft stood behind him.

Her eyes flared when she saw the bag he carried.

At her mute dissatisfaction with his very presence, Mycroft was on the verge of turning and leaving, but Sherlock took the stool from his grip and set it beside the glass, well within the three feet limit. He turned to look at Mycroft challengingly, as if daring him to run and prove himself a coward, and Mycroft's jaw firmed in reply.

Not looking at Eurus, he set his burden down and took his seat while Sherlock began to unpack his violin. When Mycroft uncovered the cello case, Eurus made a small sound, her eyes fixed on it. Those piercing, all-seeing eyes scanned the case, lingering on the scorch marks and the aging metal clasps.

And then she looked directly at Mycroft and smiled.

It reminded him of the little girl she had once been, smiling adoringly at both of her brothers, with yearning and untainted love in her eyes. The last time she had smiled at them like that, she had been three years old.

As Mycroft hefted the heavy instrument against his chest, she rushed to pick her own instrument before hurrying back, eagerness writ large in her movements.

Separately, they tuned and adjusted their instruments before Sherlock paused and Eurus looked to him expectantly.

He recognised it for what it was. An invitation.

With a deep breath, he set his bow to the strings.

He did not fumble as he once had, when he picked up his bow for the first time in decades after Sherlock's tangle with Magnussen, but played with surety and skill. With an effort, he let his emotionless façade fade, as he could only do when he played, and let his sorrow and pain rise to the surface.

The sonorous notes of his cello rose, mournful and gentle. He risked a glance towards his younger siblings. Eurus looked as cold as ever, awaiting her cue, but Sherlock's eyes were stricken. And Mycroft knew he remembered everything now.

A moment later, Sherlock joined in as counterpoint, his playing complementing Mycroft's own. Together they built the melody, experimenting freely, challenging the other to match them still after all these years. Not even in the depths of sorrow could they forget their rivalry entirely.

They still matched each other perfectly.

Sherlock's expressiveness brought the beauty of imperfection to Mycroft's technique, and a moment later, Eurus joined the piece, her lighter playing breaking through the heaviness of their duet like a blast of cold wind.

Perfect harmony.

From that first quivering note, Mycroft knew Eurus understood the reason for their unlooked-for joint visit. He could not hypothesise as to the state of her mind and whether she mourned as they did.

If she did not, he didn't care. She mourned with them in her own way.

Mycroft's playing spoke of long-buried loneliness and sorrow, of icy control and unceasing vigilance. He played of stale meeting rooms and cold warehouses, of goldfish and frustration, of a cold plastic chair and a withered, forgiving hand on his knee.

And then when Eurus's playing became the counterpoint, she played of dimly lit cells and sterile white pyjamas. She played of plastic toy aeroplanes and damp pebbles underfoot, of gnawing isolation and greedy flames. She played of a consultant criminal's feral smile and a chilling lullaby. She played of a violin and a brother's embrace.

And then Sherlock's melody interposed itself, bridging the gap between the eldest and youngest Holmes with alacrity and skilful ease. Sherlock played of the drugging high of narcotics and the rush of adrenaline-spiced blood. He played of the natural cacophony of London and the piquant tilted head of an Army Doctor, of a comfy armchair and baroque wallpaper graffiti-ed with a yellow smile, of warm tea and crackling fire. He played of things neither Holmes had ever experienced or understood; he played of warm friendship and inexhaustible affection, of army doctors and police inspectors, of devoted pathologists and doting landladies, of the women who mattered and the bubbling laughter of a toddler. He played of family, of love, of _forgiveness_. Of a plea to be forgiven as much as to be permitted to forgive.

And Eurus and Mycroft answered him. Their discordant melodies eased into unified harmonies, twining and uplifting the other as their song grew to its final crescendo. Together they played of soft grass and honey for tea, of ancient bricks and wrong dates on weathered stone, of an attempted sacrifice and a recital from behind bullet-proof glass.

And when the final notes shivered and wavered on the still, stale air, Mycroft laid his palm flat against the strings of his cello and looked to his siblings, who looked back silently. He drank in Sherlock's austere beauty and Eurus' glacial looks, as their eyes roamed his own form silently with new understanding. The duet had become a trio, at last. The Holmes children united as they had never been before, in mourning for their parents' deaths.

No one spoke. Words were not needed. To do so would have sullied the exquisite, aching beauty of their music. What had begun as a lament had ended with everything that the Holmes children could never say aloud to one another. They didn't need to speak the words. The music spoke for them.

* * *

_Finale_


End file.
